Wakhan Corridor 95
Khairuddin’s father hopes
that shaving his son’s
head—and putting the hair
in a “clean place,” such as a
frozen river—will cure the
boy’s persistent headaches.
Although the Kyrgyz are
Sunni Muslims, their rituals
also reflect other ancient
traditions. They believe that
evil spirits cause many
medical problems.
the Kyrgyz are not gregarious people. they don’t laugh much.
they own no books, no playing cards, no games.
wearing a fur-lined cap with the earflaps tied
overhead. He dresses, like most Kyrgyz men, in
an all-black outfit, jacket to pants to shoes. He’s
not above telling the occasional dirty joke.
His name is Hajji Roshan Khan. He and his
wife, Toiluk, have four daughters. The “Hajji” part
of his name is an honorific, meaning he’s been to
Mecca. The Kyrgyz are Sunni Muslims, and in
2008 his father, Abdul Rashid Khan, took him—
him alone out of 14 children—to Saudi Arabia.
That was the first time he’d left the Wakhan. The
other time was last spring, when he traveled to
Kabul and met with ministers in the Afghan
government, as well as President Hamid Karzai,
pleading for funding to build a medical clinic and
a couple of schools and, of course, the road.
Though his father was the khan, the position of
tribal leader is not hereditary. It must be agreed
upon by the elders of the community. When Ab-
dul Rashid Khan died in 2009, it was clear whom
he wished to succeed him. That summer, Er Ali
Bai, one of the more respected Kyrgyz, invited the
leading elders to his camp. A camp is the chief
division of Kyrgyz life—three to ten families who
migrate together and share the herding of yaks
and fat-tailed sheep and long-haired goats.
The Kyrgyz are not poor. Though paper mon-
ey is almost nonexistent, many camps’ herds
contain hundreds of valuable animals, including
the horses and donkeys used for transportation.
The basic unit of Kyrgyz currency is a sheep. A
cell phone costs one sheep. A yak costs about 10
sheep. A high-quality horse is 50. The going rate
for a bride is 100. The wealthiest families own
the ultimate Kyrgyz status symbol—a camel, the
two-humped kind, called a Bactrian, that ap-
pears perpetually foul tempered.
Er Ali Bai has six camels. He’s 57 years old
and walks with a pronounced limp, leaning on
a metal hiking pole that was given to him by a
visitor. When the mood strikes, he’s prone to
whack somebody playfully—yet painfully—with
his pole. He loves to chat on his walkie-talkie.
These two-way radios, recently introduced by
itinerant traders, have allowed news to be passed
from camp to camp, though the resulting infor-
mation is often as accurate as in the party game
telephone. Er Ali Bai is the owner of the only
chicken in Kyrgyz country. The chicken, a hen,
has one leg. The other was lost to frostbite.
About 40 men arrived at Er Ali Bai’s camp to
anoint the new khan. They sat outside on blankets,
in a large circle. Sheep and goats were slaughtered,
the traditional way to begin any Kyrgyz occasion.
The hunk of fat around a sheep’s tail, boiled un-
til gelatinous and pale yellow, is a great delicacy.
They met for more than eight hours. In the end
everybody agreed that Hajji Roshan Khan would
be the new leader.
They agreed, but this doesn’t mean the khan is
well liked. In fact, many people have deep mis-
givings about him. This is not surprising. The
Kyrgyz are notoriously fractious and independent